Our apple cider is a bi-product of the apples that we harvest in our own orchards and apples that we harvest from a selected few other Saskatchewan Orchards that are not using pesticides.  Every apple is hand picked and within hours stored in our cooler at 1.5 degree Celsius.

The apples are washed, inspected on our sorting table, crushed, pressed and the cider is stored in 45 gallon food drums for 2-3 days in our cooler.  We only use edible apples in this process.  We discard any mouldy, decayed or undesirable apples.

The 45 gal. drums are trucked to the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre “Food Centre” for pasteurization and bottling.  Pasteurizations consists of heating the cider to 82 degree Celsius for a few seconds.  The hot cider is bottled at approximately 72 degree Celsius in order to kill any pathogens that might have entered the containers.

The Petrofka Bridge Orchard strives to follow all Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) regulations and provides a product that is safe and well documented in regards to its shelf life.  This is why, this year, our cider is being tested for Microbial, Patulin, PH content etc. in order to determine the exact shelf life under refrigeration. 

Saskatchewan Apple Cider was never tested in our province.  At this time we would like to say --THANK YOU-- to Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food for supporting our research with some funding through their Agri-Value programs.